Support to Riyadh Urban Observatory

What is the project about

This project (2016-2017) has been designed to lend technical and substantive assistance to Arriyadh Development Authority (ADA) in maintaining the services of the Riyadh Urban Observatory and extending its products and services to all sectors of the economy in the Riyadh city. In the previous phase of this project (2012-2014), ADA had established a comprehensive database, collating data from 75 sectors in Riyadh city, to ultimately produce 80 urban indicators (out of which, 42 are the global UN-Habitat indicators; and the remaining 38 are Riyadh-specific indicators).

Project outcomes

In the next 2 years, the project is expected to achieve three key outputs:

1. Institutional and individual capacity developed for sustained updating of the Riyadh Urban Observatory database;

2. Consensus built around policy implications of urban indicators across sectors of the economy;

3. Advisory services provided to enable ADA to expand urban indicators from the city-level to the region-level.

These outputs are conceived to pave the way for a paradigm shift in promotion of the evidence-based decision-making at the sectoral level in the urban area of Riyadh. In this respect, the urban observatory database will be boosted by the GIS.

Meanwhile, ADA will get prepared for the measurement of the City Prosperity Index (CPI) of Riyadh within the framework of a national program, which is presently in implementation by MOMRA, UN-Habitat and UNDP.